You know how much we all loved the first series of Wolf Hall back in 2015, so we’ve been waiting on tenterhooks until the next installment, The Mirror and the Light, finally came to the U.S. via PBS Masterpiece. Was it worth the wait? FUCK YEAH! I mean, sure, it would have been nice not to have to wait, but first Hilary Mantel had to finish writing the final book that the TV show would be based on, which didn’t happen until 2020. So there was that. And unfortunately she died in 2022, making the production team wonder if they should go on at all.
Plus, the costs of making TV at this high quality doubled in the past decade (even with Wolf Hall‘s actors taking pay cuts), all of which forced director Peter Kosminsky to tell the U.K. parliament how they need funding for prestige public broadcasting (psst, so do we in the U.S.! donate to your local station ASAP because jerks in our government cut the minuscule funding PBS currently used to get). Let’s treasure this series as the brilliant jewel it is, and hope to hell it’s not the last we’ll see that respects history as much as storytelling.
I thought I might just give a few recappy highlights, but I was way too excited once I started watching the new series on PBS Passport — a nice perk, btw, of donating to my local station; I can watch online or through my smart TV. All 6 episodes are available at once on Passport, so I can catch up with our British brethren who’ve seen it all already.
So here I go through the costumes in the whole series, starting with the first three episodes this week!
Considering the story starts immediately where the previous series ends, with the execution of Anne Boleyn (Claire Foy), and concludes with the execution of Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance) — no spoilers in history! — the time span is pretty short, just 1536 to 1540. Thus no great fashion changes, plus this gives the opportunity for a lot of wardrobe reuse. King Henry VIII (Damian Lewis) had the most costume changes of any character in the first series, and he continues to wear many of those pieces, sometimes in new combinations. But his new queen Jane Seymour (Kate Phillips) gets a dramatic wardrobe upgrade from the prim, dull frocks she wore last time, although since she’s only queen for a year, she doesn’t get as many fancy gowns as Anne did. Princess Lady Mary (Lilit Lesser) also gets a couple better gowns this time around, since she’s at court and a more important character. Plus there are a bunch of new ladies at court, mostly friends and relations of the Seymours, and in the final episodes, a brand new queen arrives, Anne of Cleves (Dana Herfurth), with her small retinue.
Joanna Eatwell once again designed the costumes for the second series, and she told Tatler:
“It’s one of the few shows that I’ve worked on, where research has been God, and it’s been such a relief. Research has been respected and that can be from etiquette to clothing to dialogue.”
Yay, we love research! Well let’s get to it then, the costumes and some research.
Costumes in Episode 1: Wreckage
Starting in 1536, the series opens with scenes recycled from the first series’ finale where Anne’s up for execution and Cromwell’s in the audience. 
These grim scenes are intercut with shiny, happy scenes of Henry getting a shave and getting dressed in a super-fancy new gold outfit trimmed in white fur. While Henry and Jane got married 10 days after chopping off Anne’s head, it makes for exciting TV to see the events happening simultaneously.
This is one of Henry’s all-new costumes, and Eatwell said of him in the Tatler interview:
“He shines. He has to be the top of the pyramid. Eyes have to go to the king. It’s the lushness of cloth, the richness and scale. His breadth — he’s just larger than anybody else. Damian [Lewis] is a slight man, but he becomes an immovable object.”
Jane doesn’t look half bad either in silvery white, the moon to his sun. Kate Phillips said in the BBC media pack:
“The sun was shining through the window today, and it just hit both of us and I think everyone was blinded by the reflection of our clothes. I’m the Moon and he is the Sun. Jane wasn’t frightened of dressing or looking good and I think that goes against what people expect of her too.”
But don’t be deceived — underneath the 16th-century glitter and gloss is still our historical perfect compliant wife. Manchild bully Henry is ascendant, and Jane will be his doormat.
After the fancy wedding, everyone shows up at court, where Henry tells Cromwell how much better fucking Jane was than Anne (yes, just lay there and take it, don’t have opinions or needs!). The king has a new green velvet coat that looks a little panné velvety in pix, but wasn’t bad onscreen.
The patterned green doublet underneath the new coat is a repeat from season 1.
Henry will also wear this burgundy coat embroidered in gold again later in The Mirror and the Light.
Most non-Henry men’s costumes are just black/brown blobs, but Gregory Cromwell (Charlie Rowe) gets this delicious pale blue with a Tudor rose gold brocade doublet.
After chatting with the king, Cromwell heads to the queen’s chamber, and we see another of Jane’s new gowns, with fabric TO DIE FOR (see more of the amazing fabrics on the costumer designer’s Instagram!). This gold and red brocade glows and is just so stunning. Don’t worry, she’ll wear it a lot for us to admire.
Cromwell enjoys the first of many moodily filmed conversations with Eustace Chapuys, ambassador from the Holy Roman Emperor. Too dark to screencap and just more uninteresting men’s clothes, but here’s a nice promo shot of our main man.
In better lighting, Cromwell attends Henry, who’s repeating an entire outfit from season 1.
He’ll continue to wear this outfit, in whole and with other pieces, throughout series 2.
Cromwell goes to tell the Pole family how they’re on thin ice, but Lady Margaret Pole (Harriet Walter) is undeterred. It’s a tiny part, just this scene, but she carries it off well and is more imposing and defiant than the scenes in series 1 (played by Janet Henfrey; no shade on the actress, I just think it was a different ask then).
In her preview of this season, Sarah suggested that the ermine on Lady Margaret’s hood is a nod to this painting. I think it’s also a reminder that Pole thinks she and her family have a better right to the throne than the Welsh upstart Tudors.
At his council meeting, Henry wears this orange coat from season 1.
He wears this coat at every council meeting, where he’s sitting on a dais half in the dark. S1 showed off the coat a little better, I think.
Cromwell visits Lady Mary, formerly princess, who was demoted when her father remarried, and she’s been living in reduced circumstances since her mother died. Accordingly, she’s wearing this dull dark blue velvet gown with a muddy-colored forepart and sleeves. The fit isn’t great (some folks online are suggesting this means she’s lost weight or she’s wearing her mother’s old clothes, both of which I find generous ideas).
She has no jewelry or trimmings except one thin, sombre line of trim on her bodice and barely noticeable tiny red beads along the front edge of her hood. This is a woman brought down in the world.
However, being short on money and feeling alone in the world are no excuses for ripping off your hood and pulling down your hair in front of someone! She’s still the daughter of royalty, she has manners, and she knows her place and status (painfully so). The story is trying to build up a VERY intimate emotional relationship between Mary and Cromwell that borders on physical attraction, and whoa, weird, at least on her end. I don’t see it for Mary Tudor.
But really, no matter how you feel about that from a historical person point of view, THAT’S NOT HOW 16TH-CENTURY HAIR AND HATS WORK. What happened in the show was the equivalent of using velcro to rip off clothes. Way too easy! Her hair should have been braided or taped up and pinned down, then a coif covers the back of the hair, then the hood is worn on top. This is not a two-bobby pin situation, folks!
Yes, we rant about historically inaccurate hair a lot here on Frock Flicks. Probably because it’s not as hard to get right as movies/TV shows seem to think it is. Check out the Tudor Tailor’s video on Tudor hair lacing, and skip to the end to see how a simple coif fits beautifully over the taped hair. While it’s not shown in that video, a hood would be worn over the coif and hairstyle. If Mary had done that (which the real Mary would or her lady-in-waiting would have done for her), this scene would not have played out like it does onscreen. So of course, just like all the other weird shit that’s done just for filmic reasons, I get it, but I DO NOT LIKE IT.
Moving on. Cromwell does convince Mary to sign the paper saying Henry’s in charge of the church and everything, and she’ll be a good little girl if she comes to court. So she’s allowed at a feast with the king and queen, who are again doing their sun and moon schtick. Henry appears to be wearing the same gold wedding coat and possibly a different doublet (can’t tell). I adore the silver and black brocade fabric that Jane’s wearing but wait for the closeup because the design is odd.
Oh, I have to point out this gem from the Tatler interview with costume designer Joanna Eatwell:
“The boots! I always try and use the boots, because I think it’s more masculine, and in Henry’s court men were stamping around getting on and off horses. I don’t see it as a slip-on shoe time.”
Except, if you look at the research, it IS a slip-on shoe time! Ugh.
Anyway, this feast is for Mary, and she wants to shine, so she looks very regal in a red gown with a looooong train, plus she’s decked out in jewels.
Now, what’s up with Jane’s gown? It looks like the silver and black is sleeveless and worn over a white-ish gown with silver-grey hanging sleeves. That might even be her wedding gown underneath. But it’s the overgown piece that confuses me. It’s faintly like a loose gown worn in the second half of the 16th century, although those tend to have sleeves, at least short ones.
It’s almost like the Italian garment called a giornea, which was a long, sleeveless overgown, first worn at the end of the 15th century. I just haven’t seen that style in England though.
Hey, but lookit Henry, he’s got a correctly sized codpiece! Remember back when the first series came out, there was talk that the men’s codpieces were consciously made smaller so as not to disturb American audiences? Fixed it.
On my deep-dive for the first season, a Patreon subscriber commented that they were annoyed by Henry having the same hat through the whole series. And yeah, he kind of seems to again. Having also done a deep-dive on Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), I actually compared Henry’s hats in that movie to this series, and rather prefer the movie’s. Old Hollywood really knew how to curl ostrich feathers, for one, and that hat brim is more stiffened.
I think Wolf Hall, both seasons, didn’t quite get this hat:
Costumes in Episode 2: Obedience
Like the first episode, this one starts with a flashback, here to 1529 when Cromwell first enters into Cardinal Wolsey’s service. Wolsey (Jonathan Pryce) also appears as a ghost or maybe Cromwell’s tortured conscience during this series.
But the main action starts at a court masque, and oh boy, I love those! This one’s pretty good, not the the ideal Inigo Jones style masques of the very late 16th century that I long to see recreated onscreen, but it’ll do. And it’s loads better than the plastic masks/armor than Anne and Percy wore in the first series.
Henry does a big dance performance for the court wearing a lux gold “Turkish” outfit.
But the dancing takes it out of him, and Henry has to prop up his leg for the rest of the night. In the previous episode, he was walking with a staff occasionally, but this is the first obvious indication that he’s wounded and going physically downhill.
Damian Lewis said in the BBC media pack:
“I suppose what’s been fun about this is exploding certain myths. Until 1536, when Henry fell off his horse and had a bad injury to his leg, he was vigorous, athletic, and tall. Part of his tragedy, part of his short-temperedness with everything — if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time you might get your head cut off — is because he was unable to ride, hunt and joust … unable to do the physical things that he had always done. So he was in great pain for a lot of his time and his mood altered. He lost his looks very quickly.”
That’s no excuse for becoming a tyrant, of course, but I’m sure it helps the actor understand the person he’s portraying.
The masque also introduces us to Lady Margaret Douglas (Agnes O’Casey), Henry’s niece, who he wants to get married off advantageously. She has her own ideas about that (how dare she!). When I said this masque was better than the one in S1, well, not the headgear, that’s weird. And these panné velvet Ever After dresses do not impress me.
Holbein is at Cromwell’s house for a commission, and I’m tickled at how much the painter shows up, last season and even more in this one. Considering how many paintings he did of Henry’s court and how much we refer to them, this seems right.
Cromwell’s secretary reports that Margaret Douglas is getting it on with Thomas Howard, a younger son of that family. Cromwell has to break it up because anyone in the line of succession has to get the king’s permission to marry.
For her interrogation, Margaret wears this fabulous orange and red damask gown with a quite decent French hood.
YES, they can get the hoods right, which I was worried about when the first season has such atrociously bad ones! No more of this (worn by Charity Wakefield as Mary Boleyn):
Btw, Margaret Douglas was an interesting person who got into a few scuffles with royalty over her lifetime. When she finally did marry, her first son was Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, who married Mary Queen of Scots — one of the reasons Darnley was an attractive match for MQoS was his lineage through his mother back to Henry VIII. This image of Margaret is a bit later than the events of The Mirror and the Light, but you get the idea.
Margaret is accompanied by Lady Richmond (Viola Prettejohn), who was Mary FitzRoy, Duchess of Richmond and Somerset, young widow of Henry’s illegitimate son. She smartly tells Margaret to renounce the Howard kid and shape up.
While her lovely orange velvet gown is nothing like this Holbein sketch, it’s just a reminder that she was highly placed at court. She never remarried and later died during Queen Mary’s reign.
Cromwell reports back to the king, who’s pissed that his niece fucked around without his permission. He’s wearing the red coat again, so no screencap. Then Cromwell visits Jane, who’s now wearing the gown from the most famous portrait of her. It’s a dimly lit scene where she’s sitting, sewing with her ladies, but don’t worry, better screencaps are coming. Also, this costume probably wasn’t created for Wolf Hall — it’s likely been around since 2008!
Compare with the portrait we all know best:
One of Cromwell’s asks of the queen was to let Jane Rochford (now played by Lydia Leonard) return to court. It didn’t make sense to me, because Rocheford is still a nasty snake and history will prove that she deserves what she gets.
In season 2, she does get a better French hood than the craptastic visor she wore in season 1 (played by Jessica Raine).
When Cromwell next visits the queen, they speak alone, and she tells him she doesn’t enjoy sex with Henry (who would at this point?). Jane’s wearing the brocade gown again, but she’s wearing a French hood for the first and only time.
Right after hearing Jane’s marital complaints, Cromwell talks with the king, who’s wearing the Turkish costume again, but now with a bigger turban. And he complains about Jane in bed. Guess the honeymoon’s over!
Cromwell visits Mary, who complains that she’s not back at court yet. Chapuys tells Cromwell there’s rumors that Mary’s engaged to Cromwell. But the best part of the end of this episode is Cromwell making a pilgrimage to Shaftesbury Abbey to see Dorothea, Wolsey’s illegitimate daughter. Cromwell offers her marriage and protection, knowing that he’s leading the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and her life as a cloistered nun will be over soon. She tells him off, saying he’s a liar and untrustworthy and he betrayed Wolsey. It’s a gut-wrenching exchange that will haunt Cromwell through the rest of the show.
Come for the history and costumes, but stay to fall in love with Mary Rylance’s acting prowess over and over again!
Costumes in Episode 3: Defiance
The Lincolnshire Rising and the Pilgrimage of Grace are making things rough for Cromwell, more so than the king. Cromwell is blamed by the people for setting the Dissolution of the Monasteries in motion, even though Henry wanted that sweet church coin. The king declines sending the Duke of Norfolk to deal with the people rioting, and Cromwell has to deliver that news — reinforcing dislike between those two.
Cromwell then visits the queen and her ladies to asks if Mary can join her at court now. While all the costumes are repeats, I had to screencap this beautiful scene, so painterly and elegantly composed.
There’s an amusing bit where Jane tells Rochford to bugger off so she can talk to Cromwell privately. The queen’s worried about all the stuff going on, also, she’s still not pregnant.
The king’s having some kind of to-do outside, which the queen and her ladies interrupt. This gives us a better view of Jane’s portrait-repro gown, plus some of the ladies-in-waiting gowns.
Jane starts by asking the king if Mary can came to court, which is fine, but then she tries pleading for the people who want their popish ways back. Not cool, Jane, not cool!
Her sister-in-law, Anne Seymour (Cecilia Appiah), tries to restrain Jane, along with Cromwell. While she doesn’t have much dialog, Anne shows up in several key scenes and gets this beautiful red velvet gown, plus a very nice French hood (omg yes, you’ve got this folks!).
Jane’s pleas fall on deaf ears, because Henry says he’ll only listen to her when she’s pregnant. Ooof.
I like how his outfit is a new combo of pieces from last season — the burgundy embroidered coat (pictured earlier) worn with the orange embroidered doublet that was only seen in the archery scenes of S1.
Cromwell has bad dreams and wakes to hear that York has fallen. He goes to the king, who’s in the chapel having a sad. Boo-hoo, I’m head of the church now but the people don’t like it! I don’t have a boy child yet! Wah, poor me!
Another nice combo of wardrobe pieces from the first season, that orange coat he’s been wearing at council with the black and gold doublet (maybe he’s also wearing this at council, but it’s too dark to see?).
To keep up appearances, the king holds a feast. He’s wearing his gold wedding coat again. The queen has a new purple gown, but it’s too dark to screencap until the next scene. Mary repeats her nice red gown. Henry’s jester makes fun of Cromwell.
Afterwards, Rochford leads Cromwell to Mary who’s wearing just a robe and smock with her hair down! Mary Tudor, staunch Catholic daughter of Catherine of Aragon, WOULD NEVER.
She tells Cromwell he saved her and his care for her is like a father’s — but she’s acting seductive, reaching into her open neckline. Nooooo!
Well then. Next up, we’re at the Seymours’ home to celebrate Anne Seymour’s new baby. Henry’s in that pale gold coat again, and Mary has a new gown, in beautiful damask red and gold.
She’s wearing a gable hood, but the color and fabric combination is similar to this portrait of her:
Finally we can see Jane’s regal purple and gold gown. It’s fabulously queenly! Between an off comment from her and a confirmation from Rochford, Cromwell learns that Jane is finally pregnant, so I guess her wearing this exclamation point of a gown for this moment is very appropriate.
Even in this one scene, the costume isn’t really shown in full. But check it out on display:
The council celebrates the queen’s pregnancy. Meanwhile, Cromwell attends her and her sister-in-law while Jane is sketched for a painting by Holbein.
She’s wearing the same gold and red damask gown, and now the ermine sleeves have been added, and she’s draped in pearls. Just like this painting:
Cromwell has own business to take care of — he settles a marriage agreement between his son Gregory and one of the queen’s younger sisters, widow Elizabeth Seymour, Lady Oughtred (Maisie Richardson-Sellers). While the credits list her as “Bess Oughtred,” I don’t recall mention of her being a widow and having two children (both of whom lived long enough to marry).
The history isn’t clear to me, but it seems that a union between Bess and Cromwell was suggested first, before the son was agreed on. In the TV show, this becomes a confusion where Bess (and maybe her family?) misunderstands that the marriage would be between Cromwell and her, not Gregory.
This comes out when Cromwell discusses wedding plans with her ‘as a daughter.’ But she’s completely biddable to whichever arrangements as they end up, and honestly that’s more historically accurate than some kind of protest about being in love. Marriages were economic and sometimes political agreements far, far more often than romantic connections for most of western history.
Bess’s French hood is a little sticky-uppy, but I’ll let that pass because it has a good historical shape and appears to have or simulate the correct layers that make up the headgear. Her costume is a lovely round gown, which was in fashion for the first half of the 16th century and has many permutations. It can close in the front with ties or pins over a gap that shows the kirtle underneath or it can close edge-to-edge. The gown can be made in serviceable wool for the middling class or finer silks, brocade, and velvets (like Bess wears) for the upper classes. Check out the Tudor Tailor pattern of this gown, it’s lovely and I recently made my own version. The same style can be seen in this drawing, except worn with an apron and skirts pinned up, plus different headgear.
Boom, the next scene is the wedding feast. Gregory wears his pretty blue doublet again, and the bride wears a glowing yellow/gold gown. They’re only seen in dim candlelight from a distance, so this is all I could screencap.
Bess’s younger sister is in attendance, though she doesn’t say a word. Nice velvet gown, lots of bling! Those Seymours are doing well for themselves.
Gregory takes Cromwell aside and calls out his dad about how Bess thought she was supposed to marry the dad and not the son. ‘Can’t I have anything of my own?’ he whines. Dude, be grateful. Also, I don’t fully understand this whole bit in the story — any weirdness in the marriage negotiations would have been done and dusted. If Bess could be satisfied with the deal, Gregory should have been too. They would go on to have five children who lived to adulthood, so the marriage was successful by period standards.
Let’s move on to more of Holbein painting, now he’s sketching in the king, who’s wearing that classic white embroidered outfit.
Repeated but better shown off now:
And look, he’s wearing shoes, not boots! Yes, that’s accurate!
No shitty historical portraits here — but notice how much younger and thinner this Damian Lewis version of Henry VIII is than the portraits of that era.
The inspiration is there, sure, but Lewis looks too good!
Then the king falls ill and complains to Cromwell about Lady Margaret, the Pole family, etc. Ugh, so whiney for man who has everything!
Back at Cromwell’s house, a woman in green is among the crowd of petitioners. Cromwell says she can come in. Her name is Jenneke (Ellie de Lange) from Antwerp, and she sees her mother’s face in Cromwell’s tapestry, the one from Wolsey. She says Cromwell’s her father. Dun dun duh!
To be continued!
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